NEW DELHI: The govt on Monday named Gyanesh Kumar, the senior of the two election commissioners, as the next chief election commissioner, and Haryana chief secretary Vivek Joshi as election commissioner after a meeting of the PM-led selection committee in which leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi submitted a dissent note. The govt earlier did not agree to Rahul’s request to defer the panel’s meeting.
Gyanesh Kumar’s term will run till Jan 26, 2029, days before the EC is expected to announce the schedule of the next Lok Sabha election. Gyanesh replaces Rajiv Kumar, whose term ended on Monday. By convention, the senior EC is appointed CEC.
Joshi is a 1989 batch IAS officer and had recently returned to his parent cadre. He was earlier secretary in the departments of financial services and personnel.
The 58-year-old will have a tenure of five years until Feb 2030. This means that he will be CEC during the 2029 general election to the Lok Sabha and also hold all the state/UT elections as election commissioner and CEC. His experience as RGI and Census commissioner is expected to come in handy during the delimitation exercise, which is to be based on the next Census after 2026. Election commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu’s tenure in Nirvachan Sadan is due to end on July 6, 2028.
Talking to reporters, Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Ajay Maken said Rahul had asked that the meeting be deferred until the Supreme Court ruled on the issue of whether the composition of the panel to select the CEC and ECs was valid and did not violate the apex court’s verdict. Apart from PM Narendra Modi and the LoP, home minister Amit Shah is a member of the selection committee.
Govt shouldn’t have fixed meet to select CEC now as SC is seized of matter: Congress
Congress said govt should not have scheduled the discussion for Monday as SC was seized of the matter and has posted the hearing for Wednesday. “You could have just waited for 48 hours,” Singhvi said at a press conference, adding, “If this is not ego, then what is it.” For nearly seven decades, appointments to the EC were the prerogative of the executive, with the President appointing them on the PM’s advice. In 2023, the SC said the appointments be done by a panel comprising the PM, the CJI and the LoP. However, it said it was for Parliament to decide on the make-up of the selection panel.
This is the first time since enactment of the CEC and Other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, that a CEC has been appointed by a collegium or selection committee. Both Kumar and Sandhu were appointed as election commissioners in March last year, by the selection committee as proposed by the law. The law substituted the CJI in the panel with a cabinet minister, a change that has been challenged in court. Supreme Court, at the last hearing of the challenge against the composition of the selection committee, had declined to interfere with pending appointments in the CEC necessitated by the completion of incumbent Rajiv Kumar’s tenure. The matter is due to be heard next on Wednesday. Singhvi and Maken said by removing CJI from the panel, “govt made it clear that it wants control, not credibility of EC”. Singhvi said transparency and balanced decision making in the selection of top poll officials was important for a level-playing field, which was the basis of democracy.
